Zero Down
by DeepBlueInk
Summary: Seven zeroes. Rounds lining up like soldiers, tiny bugs crawling around under Israel's skin, in West's skin, and the ink Prussia can't remember emptying down Israel's sink. Only, he remembers, that the sirens quieted, and then the silence stopped.


0000000.

Prussia had seen it there, blazing on Israel's skin.

0000000.

His eyes were gray now. His blank eyes gaze instead of glare, grayer than the fresh crematorium concrete, whiter than forgotten bread and West's thin face. Holes of gray, swollen dark and raw in each corner, smeared milky white where it should have gleamed rich black, drilled into his face. Under torn clothes, Prussia glimpses Israel's skin, a web of bloodless spider's thread on a pale, dirty wrist. "Not enough children to keep him strong," he hears Denmark cackle, as soft as a shadow.

Those bright black numbers needle neatly into his peeling skin, burnt and burning still deeper into the hole where Jerusalem could say nothing in the center of his chest. Israel leaks ash from his oozing sores, becomes covered in ash, and lies in damned, damned ash. Ash from himself.

He sleeps chest deep in fragments of people he cherished and cherished still.

From a sliver in the hellish wall, looking out into the distance, Gilbert watched his bruder, his brüderchen, his brüderlein-[brother, little brother, baby brother], and breathed et tut mir Leid, I am sorry, et tut mir Leid, he doesn't know.

But _he_ didn't know,

_you_ don't know, says Israel, his face a lake and the swastika a cut in the colorless sky.

Tiny numbers march and march and march and march, a whirlwind of shrapnel and syringes of blue dye and mists of airless blue cloud.

The Head stands next to Germany, stands beside the squirting sick rot and the metallic human smell, stands just close enough to keep the tall shadow beside him. He watched the numbers of his game. They both watch, he and his little pet Braun, who lounges in his shadow and smiles like blurred glass at her Hitler, pale and coated in thick dust. Tiny numbers they watch;

Minute crabs crawling round and around Israel's heart, scuttling black bulges under-skin, and Prussia's proud brüderchen bleeding thick, sludgy ink. (_How could he smile_) Germany reserved an affectionate smile for his leader (_as he bleeds?_), and his leader flashes his teeth in return.

West was blonde, and Aryan,

and _had _to be **Aryan**,

and Aryan. "We will all play, ja?", Adolf asks from the red room, clicking his grinning queen forward.

0000001

"-climbing pure", said he-"-Damn Jews", said he(Lithuania,"-Can't-)

He started out scratching at a new scab he had gotten a week before. Hell, the thing burned.

1111110

"It's started-(Belorussia-Cease, stop-!)Bruder! I told you-"

"Nothing's happened yet, bruder-"

His forehead beads with sweat, and though he swears he can't die he runs on instinct. Prussia tries to ignore the long lines running down his back and stomach, the feeling of having half his insides scooped out and exposed to the wind. Germany'd made them, but he helped. Prussia knew. He'll pretend nothing happened, of course. He'll-he helped West. Nothing wrong happened.

3813183

"-I am not going to die-I am allied-Italy and Japan-"(Hungary, Austria, Romania, "-nothing you can-")"-We are not going to-going to-"

Hehe, haha, he can't die! Silly blue gas can't kill a nation. Hah, West, I wish you could see these idiots now-

5746398

"-astards just won't stop-Lieutenant, the ditches are full-Allies-"(Ukraine, Poland"-do to stop-") "No time-dig a new-"

He imagines his brother vomiting into a trench. He vomits a bit, too. He doesn't feel the permafrost anymore, on this side. The burn is gone with the cold; he can't really feel anything anymore. Wonderful, wonderful lord. Bless you.

6250000

"-Victory-Europe(Russia, Russia, he makes Germany become one with him, ja? Not the other way around)-"

"Prussia, Germany,"

The human smiled beatifically.

"It is a fun game, yes? Crushing Allied pests, cleansing our race of the wretches? No more Jews, no more gays, no more Gypsies, no more, no more! Just a little smoke and pretty fire, yes? Oh, our future is secured-Mengele's delicate little experiments will assure us of that, and of course, waste not want not-we have plenty of subjects for him, no need for one of ours-"

Fun, fun, ja?

Nein, nein, _neinneinneinneinneinnein_-_No-_

"Ja, _yes,_

Herr Hitler."

"Fun,

fun,

_I want_

fun,

_peace_

so fun,

_But _**power**

fun,

_always._"

"_Heil, Vater Deutschland_."

My father, my father. He is Germany. He is Germany, and he rules me. He is Germany, and he won't let the wretched hurt me. He won't let them hurt me.

"_Hail, Father Germany_."

If Prussia squinted, he could see them.

He could see them, still.

000000.

The code is near Israel's heart. The very first one, and then the next six million following it over his skin; his people, even if much of it wasn't his land. Even if Israel catches Prussia's gaze, even if he flinches and zips up his jacket again, Prussia could still remember it.

Damn.

0000000.

She covers it under her dress sleeve, but it hides there. There, on Hungary's shoulder, a grayish little blemish under a blank pleat of cotton. She frowns if he lingers over that shoulder, swings her un-awesome frying pan at his face, and it would hit.

_Damn._

0000000.

He still nurses the white scar some nights, when he's alone and unable to keep distracted. He still looks over the gates of old, gray Auschwitz sometimes, and lays his lilies by the front where little boys and girls and old men and women, one fearful body and a multitude more, and finally, worn army men once trod. Forget how America had dragged him out of the hole, half-dead? Forget it; Poland isn't that stupid.

And Lithuania, that guy Teutonic Knights nearly lost against during the days, isn't stupid at all. Toris remembers where he keeps his own bite of ink. His brothers, being smaller and more definitely mortal, definitely remember.

0000000.

They are one now. Officially one land, one Germany, one body, one bruder, so the documents say.

East Germany, he snorted. East _Germany_.

Prussia unbuttons his shirt, leaning over Israel's meticulously spotless sink. After a while, he hears the sirens begin to blare for silence outside, and then only silence, and he could only see the line of zeroes stamped into his pale chest.

Over the heart, he thinks listlessly. They wink out under his fingers.

Just like West.

And the silence stopped.

0000000.

* * *

**Author's Note**: I'm looking forward to hearing from you, if you happen to have time to tell me what you think. Yom Ha-shoah (the Holocaust Memorial Days) for this year is on April 12/13th, but I just wanted to write this out now. I had to re-write it a couple times, to get what I want to convey across, but I think it turned out alright. Please don't be offended by anything I wrote; I only intended to write a small part of what I think of the Holocaust, not to insult anyone. None of the characters mentioned actually represent nations; they are all characters born to be fictitious anthropomorphic versions of the countries in "Axis Powers: Hetalia" by Hidekaz Himaruya. The only thing I own in this prose is the character I made to represent Hetalia's Israel, and the text. Thanks for reading, and I hope that you will remember the Holocaust.

**EDIT** (December 23, 2011): I've revised this a little to make it easier to understand. Is it any better?


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